What is Onboarding?

Onboarding is the process of helping new hires become employees. The onboarding process involves a series of steps including but not limited to:

Welcoming the new hire to the company

Providing information about the benefits and culture

Completing new-hire paperwork, including:

Application

W-4

I-9

State tax form

Direct deposit form

Signing off on the employee handbook, computer usage, harassment, and other policies

Sending notifications to managers, IT, security, etc.

Prepare the hire for their first day of work

Scheduling training and orientation

The goal is to make new hires feel welcome, excited, and prepared to start at your company. Some companies manually manage their onboarding process while others utilize their applicant tracking system or HRIS. Companies that utilize software to manage onboarding benefit from:

Consistent new hire process

Web based system that allows new hires to complete onboarding when it is convenient for them

Pre-populated fields that eliminate the frustration of entering the same information over and over again